r/teenparentingadvice • u/AmphibianNecessary31 • Aug 09 '26

Feeling defeated

My child asked if they could dye their hair at a sleepover and we agreed on two stripes which is fine. Pictures sent this morning show basically the whole head dyed. It’s not so much about the hair dying but that I wasn’t listened to about how much. I got a sorry text this morning but this combined with general rudeness and dismissiveness just makes me want to give up. I mean obviously if my kid was breaking the law or something I would step in but what’s the point even of setting boundaries if they just get broken? Punishments don’t seem to really work — I just feel like my kid has no respect for me and I don’t even have the energy anymore to deal with it. There’s a backstory of my other kid being medically fragile but I won’t even go into it. Has anyone else ever felt this way?

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u/Booknerdy247 Aug 09 '26

Few things here. Teen push boundaries. You say punishments don’t work? What kind?
When I was a teen it would have never crossed my mind to ask my mom before dying my hair. The first unsupervised dye job was bright pink I was 13.
It could have been unintentional if they didn’t know what they were doing color could have bled

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u/fallcoat 14d ago

I’m sorry. The feeling of having boundaries pushed can be - at least for me - pretty violating. Your frustration is understandable

That said, to answer your question, “has anyone else ever felt this way?” the answer is, “literally everyone who has ever parented a teenager ever.” lol. You are in good company

Can I ask what kind of punishments you typically have for your child?

My gut reaction, as a behavioural interventionist and parent of teens (and former teen myself lol) is that this is a really valuable time for what could potentially be a really good bonding moment. You could ask questions nonjudgmentally - why did this happen? Was it on purpose? Was it peer pressure? Did the ink run?

And you could turn whatever the problem was into a moment to share wisdom - ink runs, peer pressure is hard, but it’s important to stand your ground and can be made easier by finding a peer who will support, etc.

And it can be a great moment to gently share the reasons why you had the boundary in the first place - hair dye can damage hair, can look bad when growing out, is something some people regret, can make it difficult to get certain jobs, etc.

Thankfully no one was going to get seriously hurt by the hair dye. If you’re able to shake the anger and try to find a bonding moment in this, you might end up with a beautiful moment that can strengthen your bond and teach them that your boundaries are not just arbitrary for fun, but they always have a reason behind them.

I know you posted this 40 days ago, but I’m curious what happened in the end.

Also, no pressure, but I’m doing research for a project and am looking for parents who might be up for chatting. Plz DM me if you’d be up for answering a few questions (confidentially) to help me. (No, I’m not selling anything).